


district court, or how to fix things that have been broken

by driv_el



Category: Call Down The Hawk - Fandom, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driv_el/pseuds/driv_el
Summary: Ronan Lynch has to convince a judge he wants Declan Lynch to be his legal guardian. Adam has to prove he doesn't need one.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 8
Kudos: 154





	district court, or how to fix things that have been broken

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is what happens when you have a social work background and need to know who the hell is letting these teenagers run around Henrietta without parents.

I. 

Ronan refused to take the earbuds out of his ears. He leaned his head against the cool glass of the passenger side window of Declan's car, waiting for the cold sensation to travel from his cheek down the right side of his neck into his shoulder. 

"Ronan," Declan said. He hit the brake a little too hard at the stop sign. Then he leaned over and yanked Ronan's headphones out of his ears. His phone fell out of his apathetic grip onto the car floor. 

"Fuck off," Ronan said. He didn't open his eyes or move anything but his lips. 

Declan sighed. He was in no way equipped for their meeting with the judge and custody lawyer in charge of the Lynch brothers' fate but Ronan was even less equipped and that's what he was focusing on. Niall had left them with a complicated list of instructions that were, apparently, mostly legally binding. Legally binding and possibly a weaponized attempt to make Declan's life even more difficult than it had been before. His relationship with his father was complicated. Declan was his father's least favorite son. Declan was the one who had to hold of Niall's secrets. Declan was never good enough to please his father. Declan was the only one Niall trusted with his underground world of black market dreams and skilled hit men. 

Declan was the executor of Niall's will. He had all of the money. He had temporary custody of Ronan and Matthew. His father left him nothing. His father left him responsible for everything Niall had refused to do when he was alive. Declan's thoughts raced when he tried to sleep at night. He couldn't handle any of this. He had to handle it. 

"We need to go over what you're going to say to the judge again," Declan said. 

Ronan wouldn't look at him. 

"Ronan," he snapped. "This is important. The lawyer said if you don't tell them you feel comfortable with me being your guardian then you'll probably end up in state custody." 

Ronan opened his eyes, turned to look at Declan. He folded his arms across his chest, rolled his eyes, and said, "I'll tell them I'm so goddamn comfortable with a teenager being my legal guardian." 

Declan pressed his lips together. "Ronan." 

"Declan," Ronan said, mimicking his tone. 

Declan pinched the bridge of his nose. "I need you to- can you please just tell me you're going to be polite and tell them what they need to hear?" 

"If I do this, I get to live with Gansey at Monmouth." 

"You know I can't let you-" 

Ronan shrugged. "Then I can't promise you shit." 

Declan took a deep breath. He counted backwards from 10 three times in his head. "Okay. If you act like a human being in front of the judge, you can live wherever the fuck you want." 

When they pulled into the parking lot, Matthew was sitting on the curb waiting for them. He saw the car approaching and waved with a small smile. 

Ronan smiled back, in spite of himself. Declan watched Ronan looking at Matthew. Sometimes he wished- well.

Matthew climbed into the backseat and started chattering happily about a failed experiment in his science class that had resulted in a building evacuation. Ronan turned in his seat to listen to Matthew's story. 

When they got to the courthouse, Declan smoothed Matthew's rumpled uniform. And then they fell silent and the Lynch brothers walked into the building together. 

II.

Adam hated going to meetings about his dull quest for emancipation. The man at the welcome desk had started to recognize him and he had to make small talk he knew he wasn't very good at. He was tired of people who either pitied him or felt like he was wasting their time telling him things he already knew about his case. Sometimes he wondered if the people who worked here realized all of Virginia's laws were available online.

"Adam," his lawyer said. She was young-- had probably only graduated from law school recently and was either working for the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court because she was so young or because she had a chip on her shoulder and wanted to help the children of rural Virginia. Her dark blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun and she wore red framed glasses that only highlighted what Adam saw as a lack of experience. Not that he was bothered by her age-- this whole process was something he was sure he could've done by himself with a few hours and printer access. 

Adam was trying his hardest to pay attention. This required using every ounce of willpower to keep himself from letting his mind slip away from his body to enter Cabeswater. He wanted comfort, or if he was being honest with himself, anything other than the unbearable feeling of how very human he was sitting in the waiting area. 

He would have rather been standing in a darkened forest alone-- head tilted back slightly, lips parted, watching whatever terrifying visual manifestations of concentrated magic the ley line wanted to throw at him-- than with his court appointed lawyer talking about the finer details of emancipation. Finer details, which included: "parental permission" and "evidence of physical or emotional abuse that is held up in court" and "you're worthless, you're nothing, and we have to prove that in the eyes of the law before you can live in your shitty apartment above St. Agnes and not a group home or with someone else's parents who saw him as a way to get a little extra income from the state."

Adam wished, for the millionth time, he could pull off a Richard Campbell Gansey III smile. He knew Gansey had to work for his apparent carefree demeanor but Adam didn't mind putting in the work. It was just that, this particular skill eluded him, no matter how much he studied Gansey when he thought Gansey wasn't paying attention. He knew he looked rigid, sitting in his chair with his arms folded across his chest and his jaw clenched tight. He was positive his posture betrayed the main thought that had been running through his head since he packed a bag and left the trailer he grew up in: _just let me deal with this alone._ He was tired of talking to people about his father. Adam thought he knew what it meant to be tired, to be exhausted. He was used to an acute lack of sleep. He barely felt the tightness in his shoulders and soreness in his back that came from working three jobs and sitting hunched over under his blankets with a flashlight to finish his homework before the sun came up. But this was different. It was a long line of strangers who rattled off their titles and degrees while barely looking at him and then forcing him roll up his sleeves and show them the bruises and scars he had kept hidden for most of his life. 

"Adam," she repeated, her voice softer this time. "I know you don't like it, but we need to notify your parents that you want to be emancipated. If we can get their permission, we won't need to use the court case as evidence and this process will be finished a lot sooner than if we have to wait until the criminal hearing." He caught a faint hint of her Henrietta accent as the words tumbled quickly out of her mouth. He felt a twinge of something like kinship and then he just felt annoyed. He knew the rules. He knew what was expected of him throughout this process. He just wanted it to be done. 

"He's not going to sign it," Adam said. 

"The judge needs to know it was sent," the lawyer said. 

"Okay, so send it," Adam said. He could feel anger bubbling up from somewhere deep in his gut. He pushed it down. He knew he wasn't justified in his resentment for a woman who was only trying to do her job. A woman whose job was to help him have something close to a better life. But he could still feel combative words forming underneath his tongue.

"I still really think you would benefit from talking to someone who can help you work through-" 

"Please," he interrupted. "I'm missing class to be here, is that all you needed this time?"

She nodded and slid his folders back to him across the desk.

"I'm giving you the number for a counselor who works with young people like you. Just in case you want to check it out." 

How Adam resented the words "people like you." Why couldn't people just say they meant? No amount of tiptoeing around the subject would make him less painfully aware of his status as a child abuse statistic. How Adam resented everyone in this building for knowing exactly what his father had done to him. How he desperately needed them to tell him none of this was his fault. 

III. 

Adam had arranged his first semester courses so he didn't have class on Fridays. He tried to tell himself this was so he could have Friday set aside to study but he knew it was so he would have more chances to visit Ronan. They had fought about how often Adam visited the first month of college. "You need to stay on campus and... socialize or whatever you Harvard losers do on the weekends," Ronan had said. And Adam had given him a look and said, "I'm not just visiting for you. This is for me too." But as the semester passed, Adam had found himself unable to visit as often as he'd have liked. 

He was being honest when he said the visits weren't just for Ronan. He knew his physic abilities weren't tied to Virginia, especially since Cabeswater was gone, but he felt different in Cambridge. He felt like just another Harvard student and nothing close to Adam, the magician. But when he was at the Barns or in Lindenmere, he felt _more._

Fall was toying with idea of turning to winter and Adam and Ronan were sitting under a tree on the cold, damp ground. Adam was thumbing through Persephone's tarot deck with one hand and tracing the veins on Ronan's arm with his other. 

They had been sitting in silence for a while when Adam said, casually-- or at least Adam's version of casually-- "I'm seeing a therapist." 

Ronan sat up and leaned back against the tree, pulling Adam over to lie in his lap. He threaded his fingers through Adam's hair. It was a little longer than Adam had kept it in high school. Ronan wasn't sure if it was intentional or because of time and hyper-focus on other thigns. He thought he might like Adam's hair like this. He knew he liked Adam's hair any way Adam wanted to cut it. 

Ronan asked, "Are they any good?" 

Adam glanced up, Ronan's eyes caught Adam's and they stayed like that, watching each other study eyelashes and cheekbones and the places between earlobes and shoulders that begged to be touched. 

Adam relaxed into a smile. "She knows about me. About Cabeswater and the things I can see." 

"And she believes you?" Ronan said. His personal experience with therapists had not led him to believe that they would be able to help with anything he needed help untangling. 

"I think so," Adam said. "We've mostly been focusing on..." 

"Robert Parrish," Ronan finished for him, with only a slight edge to his voice. He knew Adam needed someone else to pick up the thread before he spiraled into detachment. 

"And you," Adam said. 

Of course, Ronan thought. Of course he needs professional help to deal with dating me. 

"No." Adam sat up. His expression was fierce. "No," he repeated. "We talk about how much you... about how good you are. For me." 

"Oh," Ronan said. He could feel wings flapping beneath his rib cage, as if birds were threatening to burst through his skin to fly uncontrollably through the forest where he sat with Adam, his Adam. 

They usually preferred to say it in Latin. But sometimes, they said it at the same time, breathless and full of wonder.

"I love you." 


End file.
